Resources
Related Categories
|
|
|
Rome
An Empire's Story
Greg Woolf
384 pages
|
15 black and white plates
|
234x156mm
978-0-19-960308-4
|
Hardback
|
17 May 2012
|
|
|
|
|
- The story of the Roman empire from its origins through to its disintegration at the dawn of the Middle Ages
- Why it was so large, why it lasted so long, and why it was so different from any other empire before or since
- Covers the whole geographical and historical span of Roman imperial history
- Ranges over everything from economy to ecology, bathing to barbarian migration
The idea of empire was created in ancient Rome and even today the Roman empire offers a powerful image for thinking about imperialism. Traces of its monuments and literature can be found across Europe, the Near East, and North Africa - and sometimes even further afield.
This is the story of how this mammoth empire was created, how it was sustained in crisis, and how it shaped the world of its rulers and subjects - a story spanning a millennium and a half. Chapters that tell the story of the unfolding of Rome's empire alternate with discussions based on the most recent evidence into the conditions that made the
Roman imperial achievement possible and also so durable, covering topics as diverse as ecology, slavery, and the cult paid to gods and men.
Rome was not the only ancient empire. Comparison with other imperial projects helps us see what it was that was so distinctive about ancient Rome. Ancient Rome has also often been an explicit model for other imperialisms. Rome, An Empire's Story shows quite how different Roman imperialism was from modern imitations. The story that emerges outlines the advantages of Rome had over its neighbours at different periods - some planned, some quite accidental - and the stages by which Rome's rulers successively had to change the way they ruled to cope with the problems of growth.
As Greg Woolf demonstrates,
nobody ever planned to create a state that would last more than a millennium and a half, yet the short term politics of alliances between successively wider groups created a structure of extraordinary stability. Rome's Empire was able, in the end, to survive barbarian migrations, economic collapse and even the conflicts between a series of world religions that had grown up within it, in the process generating an imagery and a myth of empire that is apparently indestructible.Readership: All those interested in the history of Rome and the Roman empire, from its origins to the beginning of the Middle Ages
|
|
|
Greg Woolf, Professor of Ancient History, University of St Andrews Greg Woolf is Professor of Ancient History at the University of St Andrews. He has held visiting appointments in France, Germany, Italy and Brazil and has lectured widely around the world. He has published research on a wide range of topics in ancient history and Roman archaeology including ancient literacy, European prehistory, the Roman economy and ancient patronage. He maintains an interest in the comparative historical sociology of ancient empires. More recently he has been working on ancient science, in particularly ethnography, and on Roman religion. He currently holds a Major Research Fellowship from the Leverhulme Trust for a
project on the origins of religious pluralism.
|
|
|
"It's a swift and easy read, filled with the kind of rich details designed to illustrate the major trends of Roman history for a general audience." - Weekly Standard "Excellent ... for those with such an interest, Woolf's book will be a joy to read." - Adrian Goldsworthy, The National Interest "A fine foundation for further learning about the Roman Empire." - Booklist "[a] passionately told exploration of the history of Rome" - Publishers Weekly "This is a marvellous book. Woolf provides a sweeping history of Rome's rise and fall, and asks the big questions of why and how this happened. Better yet, he offers no simple or simplistic answers, but
instead well considered discussion of the evidence and how we try to understand it" - Adrian Goldsworthy, author of How Rome Fell "Greg Woolf's new history will be a boon for the student and general reader alike." - The Scotsman "This is overall a magnificent achievement." - Peter Jones, BBC History Magazine "Makes for exceptionally interesting and provocative reading." - Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post "Could [this] be the best single-volume introduction to the history of ancient Rome? It is conceptual yet avoids the pitfalls of overgeneralizing, a difficult balance to strike. It also has a superb (useful rather than exhaustive) bibliography. A good measure of books such as
this is whether they induce you to read or order other books on the same topic and this one did. A sure thing to make my "Best Books of 2012" list." - Tyler Cowen, Marginal Revolution "Greg Woolf's dazzling account of ancient Rome's story will entrance the general reader ... [and] will equally impress historians ... the best general history of ancient Rome available in English." - Ronald Mellor, Times Higher Education Supplement "a remarkable work of synthesis that describes the rise, flourishing and decline of the Roman Empire" - David Gress, Wall Street Journal
|
|
|
1: The Whole Story
2: Three Kinds of Empire
3: Rulers of Italy
4: Imperial Ecology
5: Mediterranean Supremacy
6: Slavery and Empire
7: The Crisis of the Republican Empire
8: At Heaven's Command?
9: The Generals
10: The Enjoyment of Empire
11: Peace and the Emperors
12: Economy and Taxation
13: War and Crisis
14: Imperial Urban System
15: Renewal
16: A Christian Empire
17: Collapse
18: Ruins
|
|
|
|
The specification in this catalogue, including without limitation price, format, extent, number of illustrations, and month of publication, was as accurate as possible at the time the catalogue was compiled. Occasionally, due to the nature of some contractual restrictions, we are unable to ship a specific product to a particular territory. Jacket images are provisional and liable to change before publication.
|
|
